Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

I grew up in Benson, graduated from Benson High School and worked at the Swift County Monitor-News in Benson for over 35 years.  I was reading the Benson paper the other day and noticed Benson Schools is still dealing with the “Braves” issue.

For the past two-three decades, the issue of switching the Braves name has been brought up every 5-10 years.  However, the issue has reached a peak right now and Benson Schools is being forced to switch by the start of the 2026-27 school year, but needs to prove it is making progress by September of 2025. 

When you consider all the buildings, scoreboards, stationery, uniforms, vehicles, etc. that have the Braves logo on it with the Indian feathers, you start to realize what a switch would cost the school district.  That’s not counting the other cons in dealing with a name change such as history, attachment to the old name and retaining interest by former graduates (thus, former Braves) to their former school.

Two of the most-costly issues deal with a large Indian headdress on the exterior of the new school building and the headdress also being prominently displayed on scoreboards throughout the school grounds.

I remember when the issue first came up, I thought of a few appropriate names and thought it would be fun for the school and community to come up with another name.    Over time, the issue was put on the back burner and most of the community forgot about it until the next time the issue was raised.  Well, the waiting can go on no longer.  Benson Schools has one year to change.

Benson High School has not always been the Braves.  Almost 80-90 years ago, the school moniker was the Plowboys.  In fact, the amateur baseball team at Benson adopted that name a few years ago and still plays by that name.  And so, switching team names should not be that big of deal.

However, it’s not always easy to change, especially when someone is forcing you to do so.

Embrace it, Benson!  And, have some fun with it.

One name that has been popping  up as a possibility is Brave.  And so, it would be the Benson Brave.  This is a longshot idea that simply is being brought up because it’s almost too easy.  It sounds good when you say “Home of the Brave,” but other than that, I’m not sure I would have liked playing for the Benson Brave when I was playing sports at BHS.

Here’s an idea from me, go with the Benson Blaze.  That was the name I thought Benson High School should switch to many years ago, but no one really wanted to switch so after putting the idea in my sports column at the time, I just simply forgot about it.

The Blaze would retain the “B”, it sounds very familiar to the Braves, the maroon and gold coloring could be utilized (can you imagine gold flames) and if you’re very creative, you could probably switch the feathers in the headdress to “flames”.  

Yes, I had thought about it a lot at the time when I was working in Benson, and it was around this time the Burnsville Braves (who formerly were the Bulldogs) switched their school nickname from the Braves to the Blaze in the early 1990s.

Ironically, it was also around this time that Burnsville High School suffered some major arson damage to the school along with several other neighboring school districts.

Burnsville was first to switch to the Blaze, but BHS certainly should consider that name as a possibility.  Being a former graduate of Benson, I for one would approve it in a second.

Former AD, coach and principal Mike Knutson recently came before the school board at BHS and had another idea of changing the name to some type of bird (e.g. Eagles) so the Indian headdress could be changed to bird feathers.  Not a bad idea . . .

Anyway, here’s encouraging BHS to have some fun with the change and make sure to involve the students and community.  Change doesn’t have to be negative; it can be a strong positive that pulls the entire community together.

Good luck!